


And I'm One Hell Of A Friend

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard, <i>I don't know where you're going, / But do you got room for one more troubled soul."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	And I'm One Hell Of A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Tyler Hilton song "Kicking My Heels."
> 
> Jennifer POV.

Jennifer wasn’t sure what to think when John showed up at Ronon’s garage for band practice that night, carrying his guitar in a case so boxy and nondescript he might have been hauling a corpse. She knew Rodney hated John because John had broken Jeannie’s heart back when they were all freshmen (Jennifer wasn’t a hundred percent clear on the details but didn’t think it could have been that scarring because Jeannie had been class president her senior year and was dating her high school sweetheart Kaleb, who was an English major and a rising sophomore with the rest of them), and they’d also spent a good chunk of their high school years competing against each other academically. So the fact that Rodney had convinced John, their temporary guitarist, to become their permanent guitarist, to go for this offer from Richard Woolsey and possibly end up having to give up college (and his familial obligations, which Rodney had harped on about at length through high school), was a massive surprise.  
  
But John was at practice on time, had changed out of his work clothes into jeans and an old Johnny Cash t-shirt. After Rodney had gone haring off to Sheppard Industries to have a chat with John, he hadn’t come back, hadn’t answered his phone at all (during the summers all of them had day jobs and sometimes Rodney’s job was less day than he’d like), so no one knew what to expect. Jennifer made a mental note to go around town and take down the audition flyers.  
  
Ronon strolled into the garage with his bass in hand. When he saw John, he gave John a manly clasp on the shoulder and nodded his head in approval, and John smiled at him. Teyla, when she arrived, greeted John in the traditional manner of her people, which was supposed to be a meeting of minds and a sharing of breath but more often than not was an affectionate head-butt.  
  
“Does this mean you are interested in pursuing music seriously?” Teyla asked when she straightened up.  
  
John nodded. He reached into his pocket and drew out Richard Woolsey’s business card, handed it to Teyla.  
  
Rodney was the last to arrive, carrying his sturdy black case in which he kept the soundboard. “Good,” he said to John, brisk and businesslike. “You’re here. Shall we get started?”  
  
“Shouldn’t we call this Richard Woolsey guy?” Ronon asked.  
  
“Let’s warm up first,” John said. “Make sure we’ve all got this together.”  
  
Ronon raised his eyebrows, but Rodney was setting up his soundboard like it was practice as usual, so Jennifer said, “Yeah, let’s do a pancake.”  
  
John opened his guitar case, and inside of it, with the electric acoustic he’d had since high school, was his old electric. Jennifer hadn’t seen it in years, assumed he’d sold it, but he smiled at Ronon and said, “Thanks for taking such good care of her.”  
  
“No problem,” Ronon said.  
  
Teyla settled behind her drums, adjusted the hi-hat. “What shall we start with?”  
  
John plugged his guitar into the amp, fiddled with the dials, strummed a chord. He grinned. “Doped Up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood.”  
  
Jennifer blinked. Rodney had written that back when they were freshman, and before they’d found the Theme from the Chalets it had always been their opening number at the house parties they’d played. They hadn’t played it in years. How did John even remember it?  
  
Jennifer fired up her keyboard, hurried to find the brass settings because they had no real brass section even though Rodney had written the song during his ska/stroll experimental phase.  
  
Rodney stared at John for a moment, then scrambled to adjust his soundboard, flipping switches and adjusting dials like a madman. Jennifer reviewed the song in her head as best as she could while everyone else hurried to get their mics and amps set up.  
  
The song was a total pancake, held together by Teyla and Ronon keeping the beat. John’s chord transitions were a little rusty, but he remembered the lyrics off by heart, and he was grinning into his mic like a madman. Jennifer sang her heart out on the backing vocals, building the rhythm and the momentum, and when it ended, they all burst into laughter.

John threw his head back, laughing and laughing, and Jennifer couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile with so much abandon. Probably before his mother had died sophomore year.  
  
“There,” he said, breathless, “our pancake. So, are you feeling it? Shall we call this Woolsey guy and see if he wasn’t just messing with us?”  
  
Jennifer almost missed the way Teyla, Rodney, and Ronon all flinched at the suggestion that Woolsey might have been messing with them, but then Rodney fired up his cellphone, picked up the business card, and began to dial.  
  
Richard Woolsey was interested in them, would help them book more shows and start putting out feelers for a recording contract. He wanted to come to practice, hear some more of their original songs.  
  
Jennifer couldn’t help the giddy buzz of anticipation at the sound of his voice, of his final, “I look forward to working with you.” But she had heard the subtle hints, that he expected John to be part of their final line-up, and she would take those audition posters down.  
  
They ran through all of the original songs they had, and Jennifer was surprised at how John knew every single one, including the ones Rodney had written after John left the band. After John quit the band, he’d stopped going to the parties the band played at unless they were social events connected to the track team. He even volunteered to sing lead on Hum Hallelujah, suggested an arrangement where Teyla’s solo performance of Hallelujah could segue into Hum Hallelujah, and Rodney actually listened.  
  
What surprised Jennifer most, however, was at the end of the night, when John asked Rodney when the best time would be to stop by and see Jeannie. He and Rodney both consulted the calendars on their phones, scheduled a time, and then John packed up his guitars and headed for his car.  
  
The next night at practice, Jeannie and Kaleb showed up to watch and hang out, and John and Jeannie were actually nice to each other.  
  
“What happened?” Jennifer asked Rodney, watching John and Jeannie trade a sudoku puzzle book back and forth. They were solving puzzles between songs.  
  
“He apologized to her,” Rodney said stiffly. He was clearly uncomfortable with John and Jeannie’s newfound friendliness, but he was willing to go along with it, for the band’s sake. There was something else to Rodney’s dislike of John that Jennifer had never gotten to the bottom of, and she wondered if it was time to finally try to bring it to the surface, because if they were going to take this band seriously, they were going to be spending a lot of time together.  
  
Jennifer knew why Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney had agreed to pursue the band seriously. They all loved music, and the success from a band would help them with their more pressing needs, their families’ needs. Jennifer wondered why John, who’d grown up with all the privilege in the world, was smart enough to not have to pay for college, had agreed to go along with this, especially when Rodney had made it so apparent how little regard he had for John even now that high school was over and done.  
  
Several nights later, after practice, she caught him alone, and she asked him. She didn’t think any of the others had.  
  
He said, “Being with the band beats kicking my heels alone.”  
  
Jennifer looked into his eyes and realized he was just as lost as the rest of them. She’d heard his loss in his wailing guitar solos, had assumed it was from his years of practice and training, harnessing his emotion in his music, but it was something more. If he was lost, well, so was she and everyone else in the band, and they could be lost together.  
  
She smiled at him and said, “At least you’re not stoned,” and he laughed at the reference to Rodney's lyrics (and his one brief, terribly unsuccessful experiment with marijuana in high school), and weeks later, she was surprised but glad to discover they had become friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Song credits:
> 
> Doped Up Dollies On A One Way Ticket To Blood - Big D and the Kids Table  
> Hum Hallelujah - Fall Out Boy


End file.
